The Wake of Dick Johnson

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The Wake of Dick Johnson is a 2016 theatrical play and feature film produced by Alt Variety and distributed by Amazon.^[1] It was written, directed by, and stars Luke H. Walker. The story takes place at the wake of its protagonist Dick Johnson, who returns from death to bitterly ruminate about the afterlife, which according to Johnson is a bleak and endless loop of all the world's agonies.^[2][3] The feature film was adapted for screen from the 2016 off-broadway play––also written by, directed and starring Walker––and produced under the same title.^[4]

Plot[]

Shortly after his death, Dick Johnson returns from the afterlife to rant about drinking, women, and the evils of mankind responsible for the eternal torment his new existence. According to Johnson, death is an alternate universe where the evils of terrestrial life throughout all history abrade the walls of space-time, leaving behind trillions of minuscule punctures and abrasions in the same way sound is recorded on a vinyl record. In death, Johnson is tormented by the ethereal visage of his long deceased uncle Willy, who habitually tortured and raped Johnson in his youth. Johnson describes this astral plane as one where only the most heinous evils throughout all time are collected and merge as one; for Johnson it is a tailored version of hell where he and his uncle Willy are inescapably intertwined for all eternity.^[5]

Play[]

The play first premiered in June 2016 in the basement of Maggie Mae's Pub in Queens, NY. In spring 2019, Walker produced a second full-length run of the play in a small cabin in his back yard at his home in Charlotte, North Carolina, where he moved shortly after the play's initial premiere. It was there the play began to receive attention and received its first critical review by Charlotte-based publication QC Nerve. The publication described the play as "[a] comic, eloquent and upsetting rumination on a meaningless universe where even death will not relieve the pain of living." and cited Walker's "distinctive voice" as "poetic, profane and dark as a starless night."^[6]

In October, 2019 The Wake of Dick Johnson returned to New York at Performance Space 122; this time Walker incorporated a live score composed by Ashville, North Carolina-based musical duo Okapi (Lindsey Miller, Scott Gorski). There, the play received yet another laudatory review by Broadwayworld.com, which described the play as "gory," "disturbing," "ghastly," "graphic, and grotesque." The review went on to say "this off-broadway show is gory, freaky, and downright alarming."^[7] Broadway World described namesake protagonist, Dick Johnson, as a character you instantly hate, but "relatable in the most chilling way". Time Out New York added The Wake of Dick Johnson to its top-13 list of Halloween events.^[8] In December 2019 QC Nerve voted The Wake of Dick Johnson Critic's Pick "Best Of the Year 2019" for best one man show.^[9] In 2021, Walker brought the show to Los Angeles to compete at the Hollywood Fringe Festival. With the exception of one dishonest review,^{[editorializing]} The Wake of Dick Johnson received yet more accolades for its fearlessness and originality. Cultural Attaché praised Walker and compared his writing to the late Charles Bukowski.^[10] Horror Buzz rallied behind the show, praising the performance and set design and calling Walker a "powerhouse,"^[11] citing the alluring pit of existential dread and beauty in how meaningless and fleeting life is portrayed in the play.

Controversy[]

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Although he starred in the first three runs of the play, Walker never intended to play the part of Dick Johnson. The role was initially planned to be performed by his friend, and amateur actor, Michael P. Varian. After almost a year of rehearsals, and only months before the show's planned debut, Varian text messaged Walker from a Georgia rehab clinic informing him he could no longer play the role, claiming it had caused him to have a nervous breakdown. The play had a similar effect on Walker's former girlfriend, a minor social media influencer, who reacted so violently to the show's Charlotte premiere, she interrupted a post-performance musical act on microphone to publicly disavow the play. She then took a further step of ratifying her position by promoting a large-scale social media smear campaign against him. The third incident of controversy was during the third run at ps122.^[12] So shocked was the theater director and manager over the graphic dialog and savagery of the character Uncle Willy, they threatened to prevent further performances unless Walker was prepared to censor the entire play. Walker declined and the shows went on, but many attempts were made by the theater to prevent the remainder of shows from occurring. The third scheduled performance was canceled only hours before showtime on account of a bogus contractual loophole related to fire proofing certificates. During the remaining days, many other blatant acts of retaliation were carried out by theater management and staff including regular incidents of weaponized lighting, deliberately bungled sound and intermission cues, and frequent brazen disruptions of the performance by staff-members. Theater management also maliciously discarded thousands of dollars worth of programs and printed literature related to the show without Walker's consent. These absurd acts of sabotage were later highlighted by the revelation that paying ticket holders were blocked from entering the theater for the entire duration of the play's short run. Shortly after the second NYC run in winter 2019, Tony Award-winning producer Cody Lawson signed a contract with Walker to produce a full Broadway run of The Wake of Dick Johnson slated for fall 2020. The pandemic caused a one-year hiatus in production, but in the fall of 2020, planning for a 2021 run commenced. Everything was lining up for a formal introduction of the play to the Broadway establishment when Lawson notified Walker he was sending the script to his script reader, an academic, who would advise Lawson on logistical support. Walker expressed concern to Lawson that an academic might not see the creative merit of the play and might instead focus entirely on the controversial language and themes riddled throughout the script, but Lawson assured Walker this would not happen, and that her feedback would be purely logistical. Sure enough, after two weeks Walker had not heard back from Lawson and his concern began to grow. After a month Walker called Lawson but he did not pick up and did not return his calls. After a dozen emails and phone calls, it was clear to Walker that Lawson had ghosted him, despite being under contract—Lawson was never heard from again. In 2021 more controversy was in store for Walker after he brought the play to Los Angeles to compete in the Hollywood Fringe Festival. Although he was met with open arms at The Hudson Theatres where the show would be produced, he was on edge about the new run due to his previous experiences in relation to this play. He hired Davidson and Choy Publicity to handle PR, an outfit so impressed by the creative merit of the play they undertook the mission at a steep discount. Of the press received for this show, was mostly positive, with the exception of a Broadway World review which slammed the show as "tedious and bewildering".^[13] What was not cited in the review was that the reviewer was accompanied to the preview with a colleague who had interviewed^[14] Walker the week before. During this interview, the reporter suggested to Walker that he had made the show intentionally controversial in order to sell tickets, an accusation Walker denied, citing the pain controversy had caused him, and the lack of tickets sold to date. The day after attending the preview this same reporter angrily called Walker's publicist at D&C publicity accusing Walker of being a racist, and shaming Walker's publicist for being associated with him. The following day BroadwayWorld published a scathing review slamming Walker for aspects of the show that had nothing to do with its creative merit and withholding vital information about technical difficulties encountered with theatre tech, including many botched cues which forfeit 40% of the play from being performed, and presented the remaining show out of order and out of context. The reviewer went to such great lengths to sabotage the show's reception, the primary truth that the reviewer and his colleague were merely offended by the language was omitted from the review.

Reception[]

Although described as disturbing, grotesque,^[15] and highly controversial, to date the play received unanimous critical praise, calling it profound, poetic and fearlessly bleak.^[16] It was listed in Time Out New York Top-13 Halloween theater events^[17][18] alongside many world renowned plays such as The Glass Menagerie, Little Shop of Horrors, and Sleep No More.

Cast[]

• Luke H. Walker as Dick Johnson

References[]

External links[]

• The Wake of Dick Johnson at IMDb